


the shape that's in the mirror

by andhopeto



Category: Glee
Genre: Attempted Rape, Character Study, Gender Dysphoria, Hate Crimes, High School, Homophobia, M/M, Sadie Hawkins Dance, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Transgender, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-10-24
Updated: 2011-10-24
Packaged: 2017-10-24 22:19:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/268504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andhopeto/pseuds/andhopeto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You don't recognize behavior / Or the spelling of your name / And the shape that's in the mirror / You swear it's not the same."</p>
            </blockquote>





	the shape that's in the mirror

**Author's Note:**

> The story is set pre-series in this first part. This section can stand alone, but themes in this will be pulled together in the second, yet-to-be-written part.
> 
> I've been working on writing a story with Blaine as a trans man since _December_. This was the first story that finally resounded as _right_ to me. I hope you like it.

He doesn't know where he had heard or seen the name for the first time. He didn't know if he'd heard it mentioned in a movie or on television, or on the radio, or if it was something he had read in a book.

He just knew it was the right name.

He knew it was meant to be _his_ name.

He was eleven years old and his hands were pressed to his chest, his face appearing pale and gaunt in the reflection of his bedroom mirror, and he dared to say the name aloud.

"Blaine. Blaine Anderson. _Blaine_ Anderson." He repeated himself, trying out the way the words felt on his tongue, finding out how the name felt when he said it to his face.

His voice was small and high and a little on the squeaky side, but so were the voices of all the other boys in his classes at school, so it didn't bother him so much. It didn't bother him the way his chest didn't lie flat under his palms bothered him. It didn't bother him the way he always felt empty between his legs bothered him. It didn't bother him the way his mother forced him into a frilly dress every Sunday bothered him.

There was a sharp knock on his bedroom door, startling him out of his thoughts. Before he could say anything, his mother burst into the room with a basket of clean clothes in her arms.

"Why aren't you dressed?" she asked, shutting the door behind her and setting the basket down on his bed.

"I was changing out of my uniform," he said, looking away from the sight in the mirror and down to stare at his chest, hands still pressed there, one palm over each budding growth.

"Look at you," his mother said. She walked behind him and pulled at his hair, tucking it behind his ears and down over his back. "My baby's growing up."

He hated to see his mother so happy over the sight of him like this. She was smiling, the pride she felt resonating in her tone.

"You're growing up to be such a beautiful young lady. We're going to have to look into getting you a training bra soon, I think."

His mother pressed a kiss to the top of his head and moved to leave the room.

"Get dressed and put away your clean clothes. You can come help me out in the kitchen, after, and then I'll help you with your homework."

"Okay, Mama," he said, eyes back in the mirror. He heard the door close behind her, but he didn't turn his head to watch her go.

"Blaine Anderson," he said once more, before lowering his hands and going to the laundry basket on his bed, pulling out a yellow sundress to wear.

If he was going to pretend, he figured he ought to go all out.

  
xxx

  
He was fourteen years old when he had decided he'd had enough.

It was the summer before his freshman year of high school and he was tired of faking it. He was tired of pretending to be the person everyone thought he should be. He was tired of always having to try so hard.

He donated all of his skirts and dresses to the Salvation Army, along with anything frilly or particularly feminine. His mother was concerned, and sad to see it all go, but Blaine told her he had outgrown them all, that he was too old for them, that they didn't fit. One by one he found an excuse why every single dress, skirt, and blouse found its way into a black plastic garbage back and stuffed into the trunk of his mother's car, ready to be taken out to be donated.

After that, his closet was populated with jeans and polos and cardigans and button-up shirts. He convinced his mother that long shorts were in fashion and that there was no way he was going to be able to walk in any shoe with a heel. Instead of cute bras that they sold in department stores for teenagers, he requested tight-fitting sports bras.

He wasn't blind to the disappointed looks his mother wore when he wore outfits that wouldn't be out of place on any other boy in the neighborhood. He noticed the confused or curious looks that puzzled their way onto her face when she caught him pressing his hands to his chest to test how flat he felt that day.

But she didn't say anything to him. She didn't even say a word when they were at the hairdresser a week before school started and he told the girl who worked there to buzz his hair down, as short as his father's hair.

It wasn't until they were sitting at the dinner table the night after he'd gotten his hair cut that his mother spoke up, reaching over and playing with an errant curled lock of hair on his head.

"Sweetie, is there something you want to tell us?"

Blaine froze. He did not move an inch.

"Like what?" he asked, forcing himself to speak around the lump of fear lodged in his throat.

"Are you a lesbian?" his mother asked, worry bleeding into her words.

A startled mix of relief and disappointment came from him in the form of an awkward half-cough, half-laugh. But he didn't miss the snort of derision that came from his father at her question.

"No, Mama," he said, "I like boys." He looked back down at his plate, pushing a couple of peas across his plate. He didn't know what else to do or say about it.

He didn't know if he was brave enough to say it out loud, to tell his parents the truth he had always felt was _so obvious_ despite no one ever knowing.

"It's okay if you don't," his mother said, taking his free hand and holding in both of her own. "We love you. It's all right if you're gay."

Blaine closed his eyes, willing himself to pretend that this was a normal scene at a family dinner: mother and father and son all sitting down to eat and telling their teenage son that it was okay if he was gay, that they loved him. He told himself that he should say something. Anything.

Instead he smiled painfully and squeezed his mother's hand.

"Leave the kid alone, Anna," his father said as he cut into the piece of chicken on his plate. "Gay, straight, what the hell does it matter? Eat your food before it goes cold."

The last bit was aimed at Blaine, who wasn't entirely positive if he was relieved at the subject being dropped, or offended by the uninterested, brusque way his father dismissed the discussion.

Blaine shoveled a forkful of peas into his mouth to keep from saying something he'd regret in another minute.

  
xxx

  
Less than a year later, Blaine was standing in the hallway, leaning against the lockers, and holding Aaron Jackson's books for him while the other guy rifled through his bag.

"Look," said Blaine at last, "the Sadie Hawkins is next week and I thought that maybe we should go together. As friends. I mean, it's not like either of us have anyone else to go with."

"Harsh," Aaron said with a quiet laugh. It hadn't been funny, but it had been painfully true, and Blaine understood. Sometimes it was a case of laughing or crying, and the two of them were going to choose laughter every time.

"What?" Blaine asked, when Aaron didn't say anything after that, only stared at him with a strange expression on his face, like he was trying to figure him out.

"As friends, right?"

Blaine rolled his eyes, handing Aaron his books back, perhaps a little more harshly than was necessarily warranted. "Yes. As friends. You're not my type," Blaine said dryly.

"You wound me," Aaron said, not bothering to try to hide his amusement.

Blaine was starting to regret asking Aaron, especially to a Sadie Hawkins, but he wanted to go to the dance, and he knew this was the only way he'd get to go. He hadn't known Aaron last semester when the school had Homecoming, so this was his shot for the year to dress up and dance with another boy.

"So does this mean I'm finally going to get to see you in a dress?"

"No." Blaine said, shutting Aaron's locker with a little too much force behind it. "No you won't be seeing me in a dress. Am I going to see _you_ wearing a dress?"

"Oh, you're hilarious," Aaron deadpanned.

"It's just one of my many charms." Blaine couldn't help but smile despite his frustration with the situation. It didn't matter if Aaron was sometimes kind of a jerk without trying, or that Aaron, and everyone else in the school, seemed to just assume he was a lesbian without ever asking him how he felt on the subject. The important thing was that he was going to go to the dance with another boy, and they were going to dress up and avoid the spiked punch bowl and get in at least one slow dance before the night was through.

Blaine tried to remember the joy he had felt over Aaron agreeing to go with him to the dance when, a week later, they were lying on asphalt, bloodied and broken.

He could tell Aaron had lost consciousness by the telling lack of any more noise coming from behind him, aside from the sick, dull sound of shoes hitting Aalron's body, and the crowing of the assholes enjoying their opportunity to get their kicks in.

"Look at her," one of the guys said, cruel laughter bleeding through his words. "I think she's confused."

Blaine didn't understand their words. He was too focused in trying to keep his arms up around his head, trying to stay curled up in a ball to keep them from getting in any more hits at his stomach and ribcage.

"If you wanted to stop being such a dyke, you should have gone to the dance with a real man, instead of a fag like him," said another.

"I'll show her a real man," said a third.

Blaine couldn't comprehend why the assault has suddenly stopped. He was dizzy and nauseated and in so much pain he didn't know why he hadn't passed out yet.

But then hands started pulling at his limbs, and he was too weak to fight. He was forced onto his back, arms pinned above his head, flat on the ground.

It wasn't until Blaine felt the fingers pulling at his belt that he figured out what was happening, and even then it was a slow, fuzzy feeling of recognition of the situation. He tried to pull away, he tried to twist his body out of reach, but every single movement made every inch of his body light up like he was on fire, burning to death.

"Look how eager she is for it," one of the guys holding him down said, every syllable pounding in Blaine's head like a hammer to his temple.

When he saw the light, he honestly thought he was dying. There was only so much a body could take, and he figured this was it.

But then the fingers stopped. Blaine's pants were unbuttoned, but still up around his hips, and the weight of their hands left him. He heard muffled curses and then the sound of feet on pavement, rather than on flesh.

"Aaron? _Aaron_!"

It wasn't until Blaine heard Aaron's dad yelling that he realized the bright light had been from the headlights of a car. That the sound had been their assailants running away to avoid being caught. That he was about as safe as he was going to get at that moment.

He fell asleep to the sound of Mr. Jackson's voice calling 911, begging for help.

**Author's Note:**

> Title/Summary from the Bright Eyes song _Neely O'Hara_.


End file.
